There are multiple ways we can add (potentially humanizing) images to visualizations, including

• Add background images to figures
• Use images as points
• Use images in axes, to represent different attributes

A good (quick) video demonstrating some of these approaches by Albert Rapp.

The plotly package provides a way of using the plotly.js library within R

• By creating a plotly object with plot_ly()
• By transforming a ggplot object via ggplotly()

ggplotly() provides a lot of the functionality of plot_ly() without learning the details of plot_ly(). Because ggplotly() returns a plot_ly() object, though, it can be modified with additional plot_ly() options.

See Carson Sievert’s book for more, especially Chapter 2 and Chapter 33!

The reactable package provides a way of using the React Table JavaScript library within R

• Has interactive functionality (sorting, filtering) like DT::datatable()
• With more formatting and conditionaly styling like kableExtra

With additional and simplified formatting and customization provided in the reactablefmtr package.